NEW YORK, NY and SANTA BARBARA, CA — The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research (GFMR) are pleased to announce the 2025 recipients of the Grants for Junior Faculty, Postdoctoral Fellowships in Aging Research, and Postdoctoral Fellowship Continuation Awards. Selected through rigorous review processes led by scientific committees of esteemed leaders in aging research, these programs offer vital support to early career investigators at critical moments in their research path, deepening their dedication to the field while fueling the research pipeline.
The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Grants for Junior Faculty provide up to $150,000 to junior faculty (MDs and PhDs) for 1-2 years to conduct research that will serve as the basis for longer term research efforts on the biology of aging. The major goal of this program is to assist in the development of the careers of early career investigators committed to pursuing careers in aging research. This year’s four recipients are exploring a range of aging-related topics at research institutions nationwide:
- Lina Marcela Carmona, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School: The Role of Neuronal Glycolysis in the Aging Motor Circuit
- Hanna Martens, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of California San Francisco: Targeting Thymic Involution: Novel Solutions for Age-Related Immune Decline
- Joe Nassour, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado School of Medicine: Probing Membrane Contact Sites as Drivers of Senescence-Associated Inflammation
- Jennifer Tuscher, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medical College of Wisconsin: Identification and restoration of estradiol-mediated gene programs in the aging brain
The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowships in Aging Research support postdoctoral fellows who direct their research towards basic research mechanisms of aging and/or translational findings that have potential to directly benefit human health. Twelve, one-year fellowships of $75,000 have been awarded this year:
- Richard Giadone, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University: Pharmacologic Recapitulation of Parabiosis to Improve the Aging Central Nervous System
- Paula Godoy, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California San Diego: Rejuvenating Aged Hematopoietic Stem Cells Through Multimodal Single-Cell Approaches
- Nils Grotehans, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School: A Novel Strategy to Restore Mitochondrial Function in Aging
- Airat Ibragimov, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, University of Rochester: Putting aging on pause: targeting SIRT6 and CDK9 to ameliorate age-related transcriptional dysregulation
- Jingyun Luan, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Chicago: Decoding epigenetic regulation to rejuvenate aging-induced stem cell exhaustion
- Tianji Ma, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, San Francisco: Homeostatic regulation of protein-specific appetite in aging
- Nalini Rao, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Gladstone Institutes: Elucidating how aging impairs brain proteostasis and protein clearance.
- Vinaya Sahasrabuddhe, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Investigating the Plasticity and Role of Microglia in Brain Aging
- Jorge Sanz Ros, MD, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University: Investigating the Role of Aging and Senescence in Astrocyte-Mediated Synapse Phagocytosis
- Xifan Wang, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Columbia University Medical Center: Role of gut microbiota in mediating the beneficial effects of rapamycin in delaying female reproductive aging
- Honggui Wu, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellowship, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT:
Development of High-Throughput Single-Cell DNA Methylation Clock Profiling - Qiang Xiao, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, The Scripps Research Institute: Reversing neuronal aging by activating declined autophagy in aged neurons
The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowship Continuation Awards is a new award mechanism in 2025, for previous or current GFMR fellows whose research is deemed highly promising and would benefit from an additional year of funding, provided they are still a postdoctoral fellow at the start date of the award. Ten GFMR Postdoctoral Fellowship Continuation Awards have been granted this year:
- Amanat Ali, Pharm-D, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Identification and Characterization of Functional Coding Variants in Human Longevity Pathways - Walker Hoolehan, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation
Identifying single-molecule epigenetic modification patterns regulating age-associated neuroinflammatory gene expression programs - Sooyeon Lee, PhD, Instructor, Stanford University
The pathophysiological role of Succinate Dehydrogenase deficiency in β-cell aging and diabetes - Ryan Marshall, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Exploring mTORC1-dependent mechanisms of lipidome remodeling in aging skeletal muscle through resistance training and isoleucine restriction - Omer Sharon, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California Berkeley
The role of sleep-dependent glymphatic brain clearance in human aging - Lilian Silva, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Saint Louis University
Non-canonical roles of cGAS-STING in aging - Gunjan Singh, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University
Determining the role of Dosage Compensation Complex in regulation of sex-specific aging of brain - Yuting Tan, MD, PhD, Instructor, Stanford University
Targeting glycosylation defects to restore efferocytosis and reverse aging - Hongyang Xu, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation
Role of iPLA2 on store operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE) and muscle force generation during aging - Jiping Yang, PhD, Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University Medical Center
Centenarian regulatory variants-guided discovery of therapeutic targets for healthy aging
“Support for these early career scientists is especially vital now, given the uncertainty in and intense competition for funding from federal sources. The research supported through these postdoctoral fellowship and junior faculty awards may lead to the identification of important pathways that bring us closer to the development of therapies that can extend our years of health as we age," says Kevin J. Lee, PhD, Senior Scientific and Programmatic Advisor, Glenn Foundation for Medical Research.
Notes AFAR Executive Director Stephanie Lederman, EdM: “In order to advance findings in aging research and geroscience, it is vital to support Postdoctoral Fellows and Junior Faculty at this point in their research path and entry into the field. AFAR is honored to work with the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research to support talented investigators through these programs.”
Learn more about the GFMR Grants for Junior Faculty program here. Learn about the Postdoctoral Fellowships in AgingResearch here and the Postdoctoral Fellowship Continuation Awards here.
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About the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research - Founded by Paul F. Glenn in 1965, the mission of the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research is to extend the healthy years of life through research on mechanisms of biology thatgovern normal human aging and its related physiological decline, with the objective of translating research into interventions that will extend healthspan with lifespan. Learn more at glennfoundation.org.
About AFAR - The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is a national non-profit organization that supports and advances pioneering biomedical research that is revolutionizing how we live healthier and longer. For more than four decades, AFAR has served as the field’s talent incubator, providing $225,316,000 to 4,539 investigators at premier research institutions to date—and growing. In 2025, AFAR expects to provide approximately $12,816,000 to 79 investigators through a range of programs. A trusted leader and strategist, AFAR also works with public and private funders to steer high quality grant programs and inter-disciplinary research networks. AFAR-funded researchers are finding that modifying basic cellular processes can delay—or even prevent—many chronic diseases, often at the same time. They are discovering that it is never too late—or too early—to improve health. This groundbreaking science is paving the way for innovative new therapies that promise to improve and extend our quality
of life—at any age. Learn more at www.afar.org.